Santa Monica’s[2] industrial corridor has just seen yet another hi-tech/entertainment company move in and renovate an older building into an inspiring office. Gwynne Pugh Urban Studio, Inc[3] and Andy Waisler renewed a 17,000 square-foot, 1940s warehouse into a stunning creative space for a well-known International animation studio. Urban Studio focused on sustainability and conservation throughout the renovation process as a way to preserve the original character of the warehouse.

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The 70-year old structure was preserved through Urban Studio’s design, and includes the original bowstring trusses, the brick façade, and the concrete floors. Much of the rest of the design maintains flexible spaces with an open floor plan, with one exception: the cube in the middle of the room. As if a centerpiece to Urban Studio’s design, a wood clad cube seems to float aimlessly in the room due to a small black band at the base which secures it to the foundation. This cube holds the animation studio’s screening, editing, and IT rooms. The flexibility of the space continues upstairs to a mezzanine level where a conference room overlooks the cube.

The clean and warm design imparted by the Urban Studio design team provides a wonderful space in which the employees can work. Two large sliding doors open the space to the outdoor garden that sits adjacent to the warehouse, allowing for nature to flood into the space at any given moment. Small polished details and clean renovation[5] techniques have helped to save an aging warehouse and re-urbanize more of Los Angeles.